A little good news to start your day, in a follow-up to Monday’s report about the dour atmosphere at the Warsaw climate-change conference: it looks like the whole shebang has collapsed, as disappointed looters marched out of the conference with empty hands, having failed to sucker “rich” nations into another junk-science redistribution scheme. From the UK Guardian:

Representatives of most of the world’s poor countries have walked out of increasingly fractious climate negotiations after the EU, Australia, the US and other developed countries insisted that the question of who should pay compensation for extreme climate events be discussed only after 2015.

The orchestrated move by the G77 and China bloc of 132 countries came during talks about “loss and damage” – how countries should respond to climate impacts that are difficult or impossible to adapt to, such as typhoon Haiyan.

Saleemul Huq, the scientist whose work on loss and damage helped put the issue of recompense on the conference agenda, said: “Discussions were g oing well in a spirit of co-operation, but at the end of the session on loss and damage Australia put everything agreed into brackets, so the whole debate went to waste.”

Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss. It was a waste to begin with. Charitable aid toward the victims of natural disasters, such as the Haiyan typhoon, is great, but there’s no reason to let scam artists pick the pockets of the developed world by pretending it was the wrath of Angry Sky Gods who must be appeased with huge cash sacrifices.

In case the looters haven’t noticed, those “rich” nations are all mired in economic slowdowns and huge debt crises, both partly due to paying decades of tithe to the Church of Global Warming. Margaret Thatcher’s prophesied day of reckoning, when the socialists run out of other people’s money to spend, has arrived. They certainly don’t have money to burn on the global warming fantasy any more.

Also, the most effective way to guarantee that “poor” nations remain poor is to let their elites grab bales of other people’s money in redistribution schemes and stuff the loot into government slush funds, or numbered Swiss accounts.

You’ve got to love the insouciant attitude of Australia toward the latest junk-science con job, in which the older developed nations would pay a stiff fine for daring to bring the benefits of the Industrial Revolution to mankind:

Australia was accused of not taking the negotiations seriously. “They wore T-shirts and gorged on snacks throughout the negotiation. That gives some indication of the manner they are behaving in,” said a spokeswoman for Climate Action Network.

Developing countries have demanded that a new UN institution be set up to oversee compensation but rich countries have been dismissive, blocking calls for a full debate in the climate talks.

“The EU understands that the issue is incredibly important for developing countries. But they should be careful about … creating a new institution. This is not [what] this process needs,” said Connie Hedegaard, EU climate commissioner.

She ruled out their most important demand, insisting: “We cannot have a system where we have automatic compensation when severe events happen around the world. That is not feasible.”

Golly, I can’t understand why the financially unstable nations of the West wouldn’t sign on to a scheme like that! Believe me, I’m sure many members of their political elite would love to – automatic spending every time there’s a severe weather event anywhere in the world? – but their financially insecure electorates would boil them in oil. And just think how much greenhouse gas that would release.

If the Australians invite me along to the next climate-change fiasco as an observer, I promise to bring a big box of American junk food to contribute to the contemptuous gorging.